


An Unlit Room, a Sunless Place

by quartile



Series: Acoustic, Electric [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bulges and Nooks, First Time, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Post-Retcon Meteor, Quadrant Vacillation, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 07:32:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8363296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartile/pseuds/quartile
Summary: Following the events of Ambiance, Karkat figures out what else he and Dave can get up to in the soundscape room Dave created for him. Later, it's his turn to comfort Dave.--"Time-out" becomes your code for "Let's get out of here." Vriska's being insufferable? "I could use a time-out." Gamzee's raising a honking ruckus? "Time-out?" "You got it." Romcom just turned unexpectedly pornographic? "Can we take a time-out?" "Let's go."





	

**Dave: Wake.**

There was a dream bubble, and you were mute, and nobody you knew was there. Trolls with strange horns and blank eyes kept asking you about people you’d never heard of. You opened your mouth and buzzing noises came out. Everything was dark except the glowing blank eyes. You tried to look over your shades, only to realize they’d fused with your face. Then a blast of painful light, lime-green—

“Rose,” you gasp, sitting bolt upright. She’s not here, in this humming room. But Karkat is. He’s curled up on the mattress, wrapped in your cape, hugging a pillow. _He looks different,_ you think, until you realize that his forehead isn’t scrunched into his perpetual scowl. The tension around his eyes is absent. 

You did it. He’s sleeping. 

Once he’d recovered from the shock of receiving a present _(even at home, as bad as it was, there was something for you on your birthday),_ he let you give him the full tour of the sound system you set up for him. Soon he was selecting tracks and adjusting volumes and synchronizing beats. You’ve got to admit, the combination he came up with, currently droning at low volume from the speakers, wouldn’t have been your first or third or 40th choice. Somehow he’d blended “thunderstorm over prairie” with “idling Maserati” and punctuated it with “desecrated grandfather clock.” But then he came to lie against you where you sat, his back against your chest, and you’d wrapped an arm around him and breathed in the pepper-and-amber scent of his hair, and he’d sighed, and neither of you could keep your eyes open.

You really want to touch him. _Let him sleep._ You want things you never knew you wanted. You don’t know where to put it all. 

_Seriously, dude. Rein it in. This is not cool._

You are so tired of cool. 

You give in. You just sort of... reach over and... boop.

His nose twitches like a cat’s. He rubs at it with a fist. He pulls the pillow closer.

You are so far off the map of anything you have ever, ever known.

\--

**Karkat: Anticipate.**

“You need a time-out, buddy?”

When you and Dave find yourselves with some free time, the time-out room, as Dave’s come to call it, is where you end up, as often as not. 

“Time-out” becomes your code for “let’s get out of here.” Vriska’s being insufferable? “I could use a time-out.” “Right there with you.” Gamzee’s raising a honking ruckus in the HVAC ducts? “Time out?” “You got it.” 

Just now, you were watching one of the human romcoms in the common room when Dave blurts, “Oh, shit, I forgot.” He reaches for your husktop. “Um, maybe we should watch something else.”

You bat his hand away. “Now? The story’s just picking up steam. Something’s going to happen between the two moirails.”

Dave fidgets in his seat as you both watch. Something does indeed happen. It involves a dropped bathrobe, a passionate kiss, and oh my they are not pale anymore, are they.

“Whoa.” You can’t tear your eyes away.

“I forgot about this part,” says Dave. 

“They’re really... whoa.” 

Dave takes a deep breath. “Can we take a time-out?”

You shut the husktop lid. “Let’s go.”

\--

**Dave: Command not recognized.**

The light in the supply room is low. The soundscape you’ve built up is a pulsating thrum. When you kiss him, slipping your hands under his sweater, he shudders.

“I don’t know how long I can hold back,” Karkat says. His hands are restless, gliding through your hair, down and over your shoulders, along your sides. 

Oh god. It’s now. This is it. “Do you, um, could we do more?” you ask. _What would that even be?_ You know guys can do it with guys. Of course you know that, you’ve been making gay jokes all your life. But this is different, isn’t it? Karkat’s not... that is, he’s not... 

You have the vertiginous feeling of balancing on a cliff, looking not over the edge but high, high up at a starry sky. Tilting toward utterly foreign stars.

Karkat slides his hands down your bare chest, tracing the trail that crops up below your navel and leads down. “Do you want to...” Tongue-tied and urgent.

You’ve never seen him like this. Let’s be honest, you’ve never seen yourself like this. You’ve had crushes, you’ve embraced imaginary lovers and arched into your own fist, but he is HERE and he is REAL and, oh god, he wants you, too.

Defenses down. Shields not responding. You don’t even recognize yourself and your mind-obliterating desire.

“Oh god.” Why won’t your guts just stop turning somersaults. “I do but I can’t—I can’t handle show and tell right now.”

“Hang on.” Karkat leans over and switches off the little lamp. The room sinks into darkness. 

You can’t see him, but he is everywhere—soft lips melting into yours; peppery musk emanating off his skin and filling your nostrils; hands brushing over your hips, along your waistband. “These come off now.” His voice is husky with need.

“Yours, too,” you stammer, twisting so you can rid yourself of your trousers. You hear the rustle of cloth. The next thing you feel is his strong arms pulling you back against him. Just his skin, touching yours. Something slick and hot brushes against your thighs. His hand finds yours in the dark.

“Guide me,” he murmurs. God, oh god. You bring his hand to your erect cock, and his thumb finds the drop of pre-come and rubs over the head in gentle circles. You tense up in the sweetest anxiety you’ve ever known as Karkat caresses your cock, your soft curls, your balls. _Yes, this, this._ He runs a finger behind them and says, “Where is your nook? Show me.”

“I—hrrng—what? no—no nook,” you manage to utter. “No nook. Male.” Oh god, you are a caveman, you are mindless, his hand feels so good, it feels so good to be touched. What are you any more, are you even human, are you a galaxy, are you lava, what are you any more? You don’t know.

“Huh,” he says. His hand leaves you and you are for a moment bereft. And then very much no longer so. Something hot and slick—something alive and seeking—coils around your cock and GRIPS. 

The sounds coming from your throat are nothing you’ve ever heard yourself make in your entire lifetime. You do not care. You are sexual, you are writhing, you are a beating drum and your blood is on fire, you are passion, you are a burning sun. “Ka—Kar—kat, agh, haaah...”

“I want you,” comes his voice through darkness, rough and trembling at once. “I want you, want you, want to have you, all of you, want, want you...” He coils and clenches and releases, clenches and releases. His breath is in your ear, he’s sucking on your earlobe, sucking on the tender skin below your jawline.

“Need to—thrust, Karkat, okay? Mmmnngh please can I—” you rock your hips into him, gripping his waist. “There—there—let me,” you roll yourself on top of him, never losing connection, straddling him and oh god it feels so good to move and thrust, it’s so easy, it’s so, so good. He’s taking ragged breaths and growling and lifting his hips to meet yours.

You’re so close to coming when his bulge unexpectedly retreats. “What, no, no...” Then you feel him guiding you somewhere soft and hot and moist, where the head of your cock can fit. “Nook,” he murmurs. “Try. Just, careful.” 

And that, that is luscious and warm and you thrust, cautiously, and he whimpers and kisses you hard, and his muscles pulse around you and with a cry you come.

\--

**Karkat: Ask.**

Dave drops heavily beside you. You hear him panting. A laugh burbles up from his throat. “Wow,” is all he says. Then he kisses you, unutterably tender. “Karkat. Wow. Oh, wow.” He twists to reach something on the floor, and then he’s pressing a towel to your nook. His genetic material is inside you. It’s strange. 

He caresses your stomach, glides his hand to touch your bulge, which is aching. You moan. “Fuck, Dave, please.”

“What do I do?”

“I don’t care, just please fucking touch me,” you beg. Dave shifts so he can lie on his side between your legs, head on your thigh. Warm hands slide up and down your bulge and you keen. “Good, that’s good.”

Dave is dancing his fingertips up and around your bulge. You can’t stop growling. Then you feel something hot and moist skim over the tip and glide wetly down your length. You jerk back reflexively.

“Is this okay? Too much?” Dave says.

“What—what even was that?” you pant. It was soft and wet and you can’t process it.

“I wanted to go down on you,” he says. “I’m sorry, I’ll stop, I didn’t know it would hurt you.”

It’s so wrong. It’s so fucking hot. He had his tongue on your bulge, _licking_ you. Whatever’s in your thinkpan tumbles down a precipice and takes your command of language with it. “Not hurt. Do more. Please.” 

He takes you into his mouth and your entire body spasms. It’s so warm, so good. You feel the tingling pre-orgasmic sensation of your genetic material rushing up toward the surface. 

Dave hums with your bulge in his mouth, excruciatingly sweet. “Dave, yes, fuck yes...” He redoubles his efforts, sucking your bulge as it writhes, swirling his tongue around the tip. You wish you could see better. You’re dying to look into his eyes. You stroke his hair, his face, anything you can reach.

Something taps at the entrance to your nook. You’re short-circuiting, sensory overload, you don’t think you can handle any more and you don’t want it to stop. You grind against his hand, whining syllables and sounds, you can’t make words now. 

There’s the telltale surge. You’ve got only seconds to go. You push him off and grab the towel. “Let me—it’s coming—” and at once your genetic material releases, and pulsating orgasmic waves flood your body from within your belly to the tips of your horns and out to your soles. 

The towel is soaking. You hear Dave half-laughing, a quiet chuckle. “I am so, so doomed,” he says. 

You catch your breath, riding the last delicious spasms. He’s holding your hand. Your stickiness melds your skin to his.

“Karkat’s happy fun ride,” he babbles, nuzzling your neck. “Sign me the fuck up.”

\--

**Karkat: Vacillate.**

The next day, you hang out with Kanaya while Dave gets some “human time” with Rose. When he comes to find you later in the common room, his face blotchy and hands shaking, you don’t hesitate. “Need a time-out?”

He nods. His mouth is pressed shut. Something’s really bothering him. “Let’s go,” you say, walking briskly to the nearest transportalizer as he follows.

You enter the sound room and shut the door behind the two of you, covering the little window with a towel. Dave sits on the edge of the mattress, hands in his lap. 

“What’s going on? What did you and Rose talk about?”

“Do you think we can slow down the meteor a little?” he says.

“What, why? I thought you couldn’t get off this rock fast enough.” You select some organic sounds, adjusting the volume levels. Twilight croaks, splashing in pools, water dripping off stalactites.

“Well, but maybe some parts of the new session could be optional? Like, do I have to do the ancestral family reunion thing? Let Rose do it, she can collect all the boonbucks and echeladder points and whatever.”

Oh. This is about his guardian, or the not-exactly-guardian in the new session. “Nobody’s going to force you to shake his hand, if that’s what you’re worried about. You don’t have to get along. We just have to stick with the battle plan and finish the game.”

“Sure,” he says hollowly. “I can be chill. ‘Yo, Bro 2.0, how’s it hanging? I’ve got half a sword and also an alien boyfriend, hope I’m not a total disgrace to the Strider name. I’d love to stay and strife, but we’ve got a couple of berserker game constructs to destroy atm. Later.’”

“Ugh, is that what this is about? He’s going to have a problem with us?” you say.

“Probably. I don’t know. Sorry I mentioned it.” He flops backward onto the mattress, hands behind his head.

“Is every fucking human I meet going to be this primitive and ass-backward about relationships? Because I’m thrilled, overjoyed even, to serve as the authority on any quadrant conundrum you care to place before me. But even if I chugged a gallon of Equius’s truly appalling lusus milk, I wouldn’t have the stamina for yet more of your species’ ‘no homo’ hoofbeast shit.”

“Karkat,” says Dave. “He’s going to beat the shit out of me.”

You stare. “What?”

Dave sits up. He lifts his shirts to show you a long, ropey scar. You’ve felt it—your fingertips found it irresistible to trace and follow—but you never got a good look. “Sneak attack. I was eleven.” It’s bumpy and discolored, crossing his abdomen and around to one side.

You feel sick to your stomach. “Your guardian did this?”

He pushes up a sleeve. Small round burn marks obliterate his freckles. “Got one of these every time I was late to a strife. There wasn’t a prize for collecting the set.” He opens his right hand to show the palm slashed by a thin white line. “I woke up hungry in the middle of the night. Snuck into the kitchen. The fridge was booby-trapped.” 

He bends to roll up a pants leg and you stop him, not sure you can stomach more. Alternia was a treacherous place, but a lusus was a wiggler’s one ally, no matter what. Even for mutant wigglers like you. Your lusus was always, always on your side. “Jegus, Dave.”

“What if I’m not what he’s expecting? What if he hates me the minute he sees me?” he says, his voice rising. “What if he wants me dead?” He looks away, up at the ceiling, as if something there will help him regain his composure.

“I’ll fucking cull him myself, is what,” you say. “I won’t let him hurt you. None of us will.”

Dave looks around the room. “I can’t do this,” he’s saying. He’s hyperventilating. “I can’t meet him, I can’t.” 

“Okay, it’s okay,” you say. “Let’s get you some air, come on.” You lead him out of the supply room to the other door at the end of the corridor. Opening it, you’re met with cool, enveloping silence. You step out, onto the surface of the meteor.

“Sit here. Deep breaths. You’re okay. I’m here.” You sit next to him, your arm around his shoulders. “With me, now. Breathe in... and out. Good. In... and out.” You remember something Aradia said to you once. “Nothing to do. Nothing to say. Nothing to fear. Just breathe.” He’s shaking, his thin body racked with silent sobs. Tears roll down his face. You rub his back. “Nothing to do. Nothing to say. Nothing to fear. Shoosh. I got you. Shoosh.” 

\--

Paradox space grows cold. He lets you take his hand, and you return to the sound room. 

“I’m going to try something. Take your shirt off. Yes, overshirt and the other one.”

“Mistah Vantas, so forward,” Dave tries to joke, but his voice is still thick from crying. He obediently pulls cape and shirts over his head and drops them in a pile by the platform.

“Lie on your stomach. Shades off, dummy.” You dim the light. Climbing over Dave, you straddle his legs and set your claws on his neck, at the top of his spine. You take in the scars and scrapes marring his back. Some are puckered and ugly, tugging the skin. Those would have healed better if someone had gotten him to a docterrorist for stitches. You force down your anger at his asshole lusus.

You claw down Dave’s back, as pale as you can manage, barely making contact. Dave tenses up, and you stop. “Sorry,” you say, erasing the faint new welts with your palms. “Okay, that was too much.”

Dave shakes his head. “No. Just, it’s intense. Go ahead.”

Reset. Claws at top of spine. Light, sharp lines drawn down. Reset. Repeat. Dave clenches his eyes shut. You branch out from the center, symmetrically etching his shoulders, mid-back, sides. Fine welts rise and you rub them out with slow, thorough strokes.

“Still okay?”

Dave says, “Yeah,” but he buries his face in the pillow. You drag your claws up his sides, then follow them with caresses. He sobs quietly and you pause again, palms against his skin. If you could, you’d steal his timetables, go back, and personally disembowel the piece of shit who made him feel so small.

“Sorry,” says Dave. “I keep remembering things.”

“Don’t apologize,” you say. 

You work on his back, switching up long scratches with focused pressure, pushing the heels of your hands along his neck and into his shoulder blades. Around you, digital amphibians croak and chirp, and something long and dark glides through swamp water. 

In time, the sobs subside, replaced by the occasional sniffle. “Sorry,” he says again.

“Knock it off,” you murmur. You move to lie flush against him, pulling a snuggleplane over you both, holding him close. 

“Karkat,” he says after a while. His head is resting against your chest.

“Mm?”

“What’s that sound mean?”

You were hum-growling and hadn’t realized it. When you recognize it, you blush fiercely. _Pathetic idiot. You really wear your blood pusher on your sleeve, don’t you?_

“Karkat.”

You look away. “It’s not important.”

“Karkat.” 

“It means, ‘pitiful thing,’” you mumble.

He’s briefly puzzled. Then his eyes grow wide. “Karkat? Do you pity me?”


End file.
